Aug 28, 2009
2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013? SEA Games hosting at risk Sports Hub
delays could mean it may not be fully ready for 2013 Games
By Leonard Lim (TheStraitsTimes)
Delays continue to dog the Sports Hub, with the earliest
completion date for the troubled $1.87 billion project at Kallang
now understood to be 2013. This has put Singapore's hosting of the
2013 South-east Asia Games in jeopardy. Some senior sports
officials have privately raised the possibility that Singapore may
have to forgo hosting that year's SEA Games if there are further
delays. Should that happen, it would be a major blow to the
Republic, which had hoped to use the biennial multi-sport
extravaganza to showcase the world-class facility - the centrepiece
of which will be a 55,000-seater dome-shaped National Stadium with
a retractable roof. The Singapore Sports Hub Consortium (SSHC)
hopes to sign the final contract with the Singapore Sports Council
by year-end, said Mr Ludwig Reichhold, managing director of
construction firm Dragages Singapore, yesterday. Dragages is the
lead agency of the consortium that trumped bids from two other
groups in January last year. The contract was to have been inked in
March last year but was delayed by financial and legal
nitty-gritty. The SSHC hopes to pull down the National Stadium by
the first quarter of next year. The demolition will take about
three months. Construction of the hub can then begin and will take
about three years to finish. But a source said: 'Even with this
timeline, a completion date of mid-2013 is still touch and go.'